


Corpse Party

by DreamBeneathTheFlowers



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Gen, Humanstuck, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamBeneathTheFlowers/pseuds/DreamBeneathTheFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sollux Captor awakens to find himself dead and unable to leave his apartment.  When a young psychic moves in with her family, shenanigans ensue. Summary will most likely update as story progresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The room was never dark. Not before, anyway. As Sollux peered around, there was only shadow to greet him. No blips of yellow and green from power supplies, sleeping consoles, or hard working servers. No red and blue from the backlighting of Sollux’s custom laptop keyboard. No glow from the screen to light the pathway from bed to bathroom. It was all black. It was also quiet. No old school video game soundtrack to drown out the highway noise. No whirring of fans to hide the neighbor’s coughing fits. He reached for his phone, but nothing was there. No phone. No lamp. No glasses. Not even the bedside table. As he moved around, he realized that even his bed was missing. He was on the carpet -- the recently vacuumed carpet, the faint smell of baby powder still lingering -- and there was nothing around him.

The teenager sat up. His brain came alive. It pulled memories from all the way when he was a toddler, trying to find the one that explained everything. He remembered being on Skype with FF. He remembered his hands feeling heavy as he typed, his eyelids even heavier. He didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t remember moving his furniture, either.

Sollux stood up. Feeling along the wall, he made it to the door. The hallway wasn’t as dark, but it was just as still. The sofa table with his dads wedding pictures weren’t there. In fact, all the pictures were gone. The place where they’d hung on the wall had been puttied and painted. He shuffled down the hallway until it opened into the living room. There was a bucket of paint in the corner with a roller brush sitting on top. Other than that, there was nothing. The room was just as empty as everything else.

“Hello?” Sollux called out. “Dad? Pop?”

He didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t get one either. He didn’t even get the fuzzy empty apartment echo. It left him feeling irritated, confused. He waited for panic, or fear, or any sort of emotion to rise up. For any sort of memory to spark. Anything at all to give him something to work with. Sollux stared at the walls, as if they contained the answers.

After a moment of calm silence, he ran to the front door, unable to stand being in there any longer.


	2. The First Few Days

The first night, he fought with the door until the sun rose. When light filled the room, he discovered that even though he had no glasses, he could see. It wasn’t like seeing with his eyes, though. It was like knowing what something looked like and having that thing formed from this knowledge. Or like a dream. He pressed his hands against the carpet, surprised to find that aside from pressure, he felt nothing discernable. No bristles. No warmth.

As the day progressed, Sollux tried every window several times. He tried breaking them, opening them, jumping through them. They shook and rattled, but not once did they release him. It didn’t matter how hard he threw himself at them; it was like he was weightless. 

Doors didn’t respond to him. He could turn knobs, but could not close the damned thing. None except for his bedroom door, which he slammed shut just to hear it’s sound. It reminded him that this was all really happening. 

Everything was like that now. He knew what it's supposed to feel like, and sometimes he could trick himself into believing it was the same. But it wasn’t. This world had no sensation, not like before. He didn’t feel the sun lying in the windows, nor cold in the night. He didn’t feel the last breeze of the air conditioner before it shut off.

As time passed, he grew more and more bored, but not hungry. Not parched. He didn’t need the bathroom. He sat in the window, leaning his head against the frame. He stared at the four perfect squares of light on the ground. There was no shadow. Not on the wall. Not anywhere. This was an impossible existence. He told himself several times that he must be hallucinating, or something. People just didn’t stop being real. 

He closed his eyes, praying that sleep would take him away. He didn’t feel anything normal. No mania. No depression. He didn’t even feel that tired. Even as the sun dropped. Even hours later, when he slinked from the window to the floor, curling up into a ball. It was all pointless.

By the time the sun had risen on the third day, Sollux had an epiphany. 

He was dead.

He couldn’t recall actually dying, but it was the only thing that made sense. He took another walk around the apartment, seeing it with a new perspective. He could almost see his dads in the kitchen, heads down and crying. One of them clutching their cell phone, receiving the news. He could see the family photos ripped off the walls in grief, hastily repaired. 

He almost wondered which room he died in. But he already knew. He walked to his bedroom. Moving the door on his way in, he wandered back to the spot where this all began. It felt cold, but like everything else, he was certain that was just a lingering memory.

~*~

Clinging to the front window, Sollux peered down into a neighboring apartment building. There was someone who watched TV with the captioning on. The series they were currently into involved some teenagers who liked to party, and make out with each other. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing he’d watch when he was alive. But since it was the only form of entertainment he had these days, it was the best damn thing ever. 

That evening, the TV was dark. He couldn’t see any shadows moving on the wall, either. They weren’t home. That, or they were in bed early. Sighing, Sollux pressed his forehead to the glass, closing his eyes. He wished he could fall right through it. He had already tried phasing through walls and found it didn’t work. Still, there was a tiny piece of him that said what if. When enough time had passed and he was still firmly rooted, Sollux pushed away. 

He had found another less pleasant way to make time go by. He cast no shadows, but the mirror sometimes reflected him. So he headed that way. 

Seeing himself, imagining his body as being physical, was a stimulant. He could draw up memories. They were mostly sad with an even more bitter after taste, but it was the closest thing to dreaming he could do. Plus, he needed something to ease his idleness. Death was the most tedious thing of his life.

As he passed through the doorway, he saw a familiar, tired face. He smiled at it. It smiled back, crooked teeth and all. Staring at his reflection, he brought a hand up and pressed it to his face. He didn’t know if his skin was soft or oily, just that it was now a dull grey. He ran his fingers across his cheek, resting them on his chin. 

His eyes were dull. When he was alive, one had been an ice blue and the other a deep brown. Now, they were both glossed over, like he had cataracts. Staring into them, he recalled his dads. When they’d adopted him, they had been so excited about his eyes. His right color matched Pop’s; his left matched Dad’s. It was meant to be, they said. 

It was a corny story that Sollux had never been particularly fond of Now, it meant the world to him. It made his chest feel full, nearly alive. Aching, but alive. 

Running his tongue over his teeth, another face came to him. FF had always said his teeth were “cute”. Of course, FF thought a lot of things were cute that weren’t. Like cuttlefish. He never understood that. 

He remembered her smell as she pet his bangs out of his face. He paused his game, setting the controller aside. She smiled at him, her lips glistening with that strawberry flavored lip gloss. She loved upside down kisses. Sollux would never admit it, but he kind of did too. It made him think of that scene in Spider-Man. The way she was holding his head now, it was obvious that one of them was coming soon.

“I think you’re cute, too!” She said. She was purring as it rolled off her tongue. “You’re so grouchy, I love it!”

An argument had already formed in his head about how there was a difference between grouchiness and irritability. It was cut short by her lips pressing against his, her tongue running along his teeth. It was a weird kiss, but it was just what FF did. She loved every part of him, even those he wasn’t so sure about. He’d still finish that thought, though. Just after. When she was least expecting it, he’d drop a knowledge bomb on her. Until then, he got lost in her warmth, their kisses becoming more soft and PG. 

Sollux covered his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips. But it was useless. He’d soon forget what kisses felt like. What Feferi’s smile looked like. What her voice sounded like. Even now, he wasn’t sure if he was remembering correct. He had nothing to compare it to. 

As the ache grew in his chest, his heart cracked open. A familiar numbness fell over him. He knew it was impossible, but he felt it all the same. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction. The need to do anything dissipated, replaced by a desire to drift away into nothingness. A perfectly normal, human reaction. 

Shuffling into the bedroom, Sollux laid down in the sun. He watched the sky turn dark, not moving, and trying not to think.

~*~

Time became meaningless. He tried to force himself to remember his death, but it was useless. He had recalled that entire day up until that last conversation with FF. He had woke up early and thrown his phone across the room to shut off the alarm. He remembered going to school. He sent this kid from his school a computer virus for claiming to be the best hacker. The kid was a hack, alright. 

Sollux had taken a shortcut home, nearly falling and breaking his leg as he crossed the dam. When he came home, he ate a box of mac & cheese by himself. He played Pokemon for an hour, then he hopped on Skype. He talked with FF about her cuttlefish, and friend drama. She listened to him gripe about his teachers. He was in the middle of badmouthing his history professor when his fingers grew heavy. He remembered his face growing warm, especially in the cheek to eye area. He rested his eyes. 

Then, he woke up in an empty apartment. It was just like taking an unscheduled afternoon nap. There was nothing, nothing, that indicated death. 

Still, he stressed about it. There were so many questions, and no way to find answers. It was eating him alive. He thought about Feferi on the other end of the conversation. Did she realize he was dead? Who found his body? Was it one of his dads? Who attended his funeral? Was it sappy? Did the kid ever fix the virus? Did anyone miss him? Did they find his book of passwords? Were his Neopets taken care of? When did he last clear his history? Was it before the Naruto porn? He hoped it was. He didn’t need that coming to light.

The one he really needed to know was how much time had passed between dying and waking up. 

Why didn’t anyone come to the apartment to grieve? Where did his dads move to? Were they ever coming back? Would he see them when they died, or was he stuck there forever?

His fingers itched to be gliding over a computer keyboard; finding out this information while some noise played through his headphones. The fact that he might never know was hard to accept. He knew the someone would move in one day. They’d have a computer. Maybe he could use it still. 

That, or the building would be destroyed, and hopefully free him from his imprisonment.

But eventually, something had to change.


	3. Something Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated after publishing.

Sollux stood in the center of his room, where the cold spot was. He stared at the ground, pressing the carpet with his foot and watching it bend beneath his imaginary weight. He focused on that. In the back of his mind, he was aware that he was nothing more than an image. He wasn’t really there. He had no weight, no physical body. And yet, the carpet moved beneath his foot. The bedroom door slammed when he shoved it. He could make the windows rattle. 

He had no mass, and yet, he had force. He didn’t know what it meant. As he held his hand out to touch the sunbeams, watching dust particles float right through him, he decided it was very stupid. Yes, that seemed like the best answer. 

Bored, Sollux started to walk around. He wondered if the neighbors below him could hear his pacing. Was their ceiling groaning beneath his non-weight? He jumped up and down. Unlike the windows and door, the floor did not vibrate. The carpet danced for a minute, but no more than if he sprayed it with canned air. Slightly disappointed that he couldn’t torture the neighbors, Sollux put a hand to his chin.

“Why can I move the door, but not the floor?” The words seemed to exist, though he didn’t hear them. He paced the floors some more. “It could be because the door is above. Maybe I can only affect things above where I died?”

He thought about it. “No, that’s wrong…”

“It’s not like you are an expert on the afterlife,” Sollux said, slightly annoyed with himself. He remembered all the hours spent online, in his chat rooms and forums. He remembered arguing with the ‘plebs’ and their pitiful reliance on an imaginary father figure whose zombie son saved all the souls. He remembered that, and tasted something bitter on the back of his throat.

He scoffed. “This shit wasn’t supposed to be real! No, fuck that because it isn’t real! I don’t see a god! I don’t see zombie Jesus with his rotting holey hands!”

“Or maybe it is real, and this is limbo or whatever.” He looked at the window. He knew if he looked down he’d see people. Real people. In cars, on bikes, walking their dogs. They were flesh and blood, shit and sweat. “Purgatory… as in, I’m not a bad person, just not a good soul? I need cleaning?”

There was no answer, not even from himself. He started walking around the room again, chewing on his nails. After a moment, that was no longer enough. He felt the thoughts and ponderings pushing against the back of his head like a badly timed migraine. He didn’t want to deal with them right now either. It seemed heavy. Seemed to weigh him down. This thought of everything he could’ve gotten wrong. Of everything he didn’t listen to. Of everything he didn’t know.

The room was suddenly far too small. Sollux left it behind, moving into the kitchen. He was so busy trying not to think that he almost didn’t hear the front door unlock. When he did, time slowed. He turned to stare. The knob wiggled. Sollux had never been a master at strategy. Okay, well, he thought he had been, but everything that was well planned was often destroyed by impulse. Impulse was the dominant power of his best achievements, and this one was no different.

Light broke through the crack as the door started moving. There were voices, laughing. Sollux didn’t care. As soon as there was a thumb’s width of light between the door and the frame, he dashed for it. He grabbed the door, clumsily sliding around it. The office manager walked in, clutching a folder that went tumbling as Sollux haphazardly rushed by. She shrieked. Sollux barely had enough time to wonder if he was incorporeal enough to run right through human flesh before he was doing so. He passed beneath the door frame, and straight into the two girls being led by the manager. One of them seemed shocked, the other barely noticed. He went through them like they were air.

Before he struck the wall, fog filled his vision. He felt sharp streaks cross his brain, like someone was stabbing him with needles. The air around him seemed to solidify, pushing back against him like a tidal wave. He held out his arms, trying to swim his way through the invisible barrier, his feet uselessly bracing themselves against the concrete flooring. His chest felt tight as the barrier moved around him. Something cold wrapped around his waist, and with a single tug, he was flying backwards, back into the apartment.

“I am so sorry,” the manager said, a blush rising to her cheeks. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this cold in here!” The taller of the two girls smiled, muttering something. The shorter of the two was breathing hard, her eyes darting around the room. She didn’t seem to notice. “Well, um, this is on the top floor, but as you saw, the elevator is easy to access. I’m sure your mother won’t have any problems.”

As daintily as possible in her skirt and heels, the manager squatted down to pick up the file she dropped. As she stood up, she closed the door. As soon as it sealed, Sollux dropped from the air, rolling to a stop in front of the hallway. Even though he wasn’t actually breathing, Sollux still gasped as the pressure released from his stomach. His chest still shook as if it contained something besides the afterthought of a boy as he fought back tears and anger. His old habits were dying harder than he did, it seemed.

“Is the AC still running?” The shorter girl asked. She rubbed her arms, shivering. 

“No, the power’s been off for a while now.”

Sollux drew his knees to himself, burying his face in them. He didn’t care anymore. He stayed there, curled into the smallest ball possible as the tour of the apartment continued. They walked through him several times, but he didn't move. Once they were gone, he only moved to change locations, going back to the cold spot in his bedroom to wish the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

~*~

It was August. The day before school. Feferi was wearing a light purple sweater, no make up. Sollux was resting against her lap, playing games on his phone while she absently brushed his hair. They could smell his dads cooking ‘something special’. They were trying to impress her. She was so rich, so beautiful -- they felt inadequate in her presence -- and for some reason, Pop thought butter and crab was the key to connecting their two families. 

Feferi’s long curls dangled in his face. He didn’t care. He could smell coconut and honey from her new conditioner -- some fancy concoction from the vegan store. She always tried on a new scent, and they were all wonderful. He just smelled like whatever was on sale a few months before. It would be embarrassing if either one of them cared. As luck would have it, that wasn’t the case. 

From the TV there came a loud scream. Feferi sighed. “I told him not to go in there, but they never listen, do they?”

“No,” Sollux answered, robotically. 

Feferi’s voice was distant. “Nope. They never listen to me at all.”

“We can watch, er--,” his lisp was stronger when he was alive, making him consider his words a bit more wisely. “--another thing if you want.”

Feferi smiled, looking down at him. “No, it’s fine. I want to see the blond guy get gutted.”

“It is, uh… pretty great,” Sollux said. He felt that twinge inside of him, the compulsion to say more. Like any good vomit, the word variety was hard to stop. He didn’t even have time to control his wild, lisping teeth before he was stumbling over: “He gets his stomach slashed and you can see the intestines and shit. It’s like someone just sloshed a bucket of bad special effects all over the corpse. And by bad, I mean fucking awesome. Did you ever see Trolls 2?”

Feferi nodding, snorting a little. 

“That is my favorite shitty movie of all time,” Sollux rolled out of Feferi’s lap, the phone falling wayside. “There’s this scene where this douchey looking guy is all like, ‘they killed what’s-her-face and now they’re gonna kill me’.” Sollux did his best impression, dragging his hands down the side of his face like the infamous Picasso painting. “‘Oooooh noooooooooooo.’”

FF looked like she wanted to say something more, but instead, she started laughing. Sollux knew what it was about. He didn’t have to ask, because it was always about the same thing. The same person. And she covered it up almost flawlessly with a radiant smile. 

Sollux felt the memory drifting away. He stepped away from the bottle on the sink, giving it’s label one last glance. Yes, it was the same as Feferi's. Exactly the same -- pretentious vegan labeling and all. Feeling only slightly less bitter, he stepped into his bedroom to survey the rest of it. All of her stuff was there now -- the new girl's. A day ago it had been in boxes; a day before that, Michigan. Now, it was here. Her bed was where his had been, draped in mesh fabric and fairy lights like a princess. Her Indiana Jones posters were giving the plain white walls new life. Her rock collection, and bookshelf stocked with history nerd shit. Her tower of stuffed animals. Her life, taking over his room. 

Between being lonely forever or watching his home become someone elses, he didn’t know which was worse.


End file.
